Telefonica first-quarter net profit falls less than expected

MADRID -Spanish telecoms group Telefonica on Thursday reported a 20% fall in first-quarter web revenue to 706 million euros ($741.86 million).

The drop in revenue was much less that anticipated, with an analysts’ consensus offered by the corporate forecasting web revenue of 470 million euros, core earnings of two.96 billion and revenues of 9.07 billion.

Telefonica’s core earnings had been down 6.4% to three.2 billion euros and general revenues fell 9% to 9.41 billion euros.

When excluding the consequences of latest asset disposals, revenues had been up 3.2% and core earnings rose 2.1%, the corporate mentioned.

Telefonica attributed the efficiency to its capability to adapt costs to inflation in most markets, beneficial foreign money swings and the energy of its tech enterprise, which supplies cybersecurity, cloud, large information and web of issues providers.

Telefonica reiterated it expects a rise of “low single digit development” of revenues and core earnings, excluding the impact of asset gross sales. The corporate confirmed a dividend of 0.3 euros per share to be paid in two instalments in December 2022 and June 2023.

($1=0.9517 euros)